Dutch colonial style townhouses, with commercial space on the ground floors and windmills just beyond line a main street in Shanghai’s Holland Village dotted with planters containing plastic tulips.

In Original Copies, Bosker, the senior tech editor at the Huffington Post, presents a thorough analysis of the remarkable building replication phenomenon that has been happening across China. She begins to unravel the story by first identifying China’s cultural acceptance of counterfeiting and explains how traditional Chinese views reflect the idea of the replica as equal. Bosker gives examples to back up this point, citing how ancient Chinese emperors used to replicate the gardens and towns of surrounding empires as a show of power.

A few more pages in, Bosker goes on to theorize that the government (which owns the land in China) has given developers the power to replicate because the culture has encouraged the elite to show off home ownership as a form of sophistication. And it seems that the wealthy have taken the idea and run with it. Imitations of France’s Palace of Versailles have literally been duplicated dozens of times in Chinese “French Bourgeois” neighborhoods. The whole point of the verisimilitude of these 1,400 to 1,600 square meter homes is to function as a badge of social prestige.

Though certainly cerebral at times and complex in its analysis, Original Copies is still easy to read and understand. The imagery of Spanish, Italian, and German communities seemingly uprooted from their existing landscapes and transplanted in China is fascinating. These provocative photographs help illustrate Bosker’s most dramatic point that traditional Chinese culture is fading as middle-class families emulate the western culture that comes with each new faux community.

Overall, I found Original Copiesto be a fascinating glimpse into an emerging trend and a must-have book for those interested in Chinese development and architecture. Just be ready for a weighty discussion supported by comments from the world’s leading architects, critics and city planners. No matter your stance on the lack of eco-consciousness and originality that many Chinese developers have demonstrated, Bosker will leave you with a better understanding of why this phenomenon is growing in China. And just to be sure your copy of the book is an original, I suggest you order it through the link below.

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3 Comments

The English village looks about as accurate as the 1 at epcot (in FLoreda). I wouldn;t mind keeping their police though.

philatonianApril 30, 2013 at 1:00 pm

None of these are “copies,” and most are only inspired by regional architecture. Paris’s Eiffel Tower is almost twice as tall as China’s, which isn’t the only replica.

You can find the same “copies” in Las Vegas (which has its own, even taller, Eiffel Tower) or Dubai, or any theme park in the world. Architecture in Florida and Southern California is heavily borrowed from Italian and Spanish styles.

The title of the book is a bit misleading, and the content isn’t anything new. The United States mimicked Europe for the better part of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

If developers in China were truly replicating entire Medieval or Midwestern villages and claiming them their own design, it would be notable. It’s not. It’s just a handful of uninspired architects and developers offering up some gimmicky tourist traps.

riptionatorMarch 14, 2013 at 3:20 pm

I don’t think they are as good as the originals. For one, Western countries don’t have brown water.